Every week brings a couple more red-letter days for David Moyes. Over the past
month he has had his first Barclays Premier League game in charge of
Manchester United, his first at Old Trafford, his first against Liverpool
and, this week, his first in the Champions League and his first derby match
against Manchester City.

Moyes bristles sometimes at characterisations of him as some wide-eyed ingénue
— not surprisingly, really, given that he is a 50-year-old who has been
managing for 15 years.

When asked yesterday about the prospect of his first Champions League match
this evening, he said that he